Sunday, 7 June 2009

‘It was the place we found a half empty juice bottle M’am, the same flavour said to be the victim’s favourite. Apple. 50% real juice. She never went anywhere without it. When I saw it lying on the scene, I remembered what her mother said. We checked the bottle for prints, and it matched hers.’

‘Hmmm, so, we have prints and a location,’ said Lead Inspector Franco counting off on her fingers, ‘but no suspect? Is there any reason why she was found on the grounds of the hospital? From what I can remember, she was a bank teller in the city wasn’t she?’

‘Yes, she was.’ Affirmed Officer Jabobs, ‘but her best friend worked and lived here at the hospital, apparently she was going to overnight at her room in the hostel last night.’

‘Then why are we still here? Let’s go to her friend.’

‘She’s missing also.’

‘O.’

‘Ja, so what we done first, was try to establish whether the girls had any enemies. Turns out they do. Jacqui was raised by rich parents, and although she tried to work hard and not rely on her parents for handouts, there were many of her peers, especially other girls, who didn’t like her just because of that fact. Nabeela came from a much poorer upbringing, but she studied very hard and was studying to become a physician, but practically entirely from bursaries. We’re trying to find all their remaining friends and acquaintances, to piece up the puzzles of what happened on and during the few days before this happened, to try to track down who might have done this.’

‘We’ve got: Jacqui’s bank colleagues, her church friends, her family, and friends on the train that she travelled with from her house to work. Also, Nabeela’s hostel friends, class mates, and colleagues from the hospital, her family could be excluded, because they’re too far away.’

‘Don’t discount their social networking and phone activities. Check if they’ve been online, who they’ve been in contact with electronically or telephonically.’

‘But we haven’t found their phones yet though, M’am,’

‘But you have their numbers, right? Track those.’

‘Great, I’ll get Jackson to do that now.’ Said Jacobs while texting Jackson,’ So, we spoke to the respective groups, and pinpointed the ones closest to the girls. I’ve set up meetings with them for. . .in the next 20 minutes in fact. We should be able to learn more about where these girls could be.

‘Ok good. We’ve really hit a clean blank on this one. I’m actually hoping that they were kidnapped you know.’

‘Why?’

‘If they were, chances are the kidnapper will ask for a ransom, which Jacqui’s parents would hopefully be able to pay out because they are so wealthy, and even if they can’t, there would still be a chance that they are still alive, and then they could still be saved. If it’s not, and it’s just yet another rape and/or murder case… dammit man, that would be tragic.’

‘Ja, just another statistic to add to our notoriety of being one of the rape and murder capitals of the world’

Just then another investigating officer bursts through the door, panting he says; ‘M’am, new evidence!’

‘Breathe Mills, breathe! What evidence?’

‘One of her train friends has a video, a video that Jacqui made on a trip home on the train, apparently there’s some dodgy oke on it, could be our breakthrough’

Franco looked at Jacobs and smiled, ‘This might be what we’ve been working so hard to find!’

The video was nothing out of the ordinary, filled with the usual youthful abandon and gaiety. It was about five minutes long, and all it really had was Jacqui and her friends laughing, joking and talking in the train. But then, somewhere close to the end, Jacqui pans across the carriage, her camera finds random people sleeping, talking, listening to music, but then. . .she finds someone staring at her, staring with such searing, burning eyes, almost psychotic. She is obviously distressed by this young man who’s gaze is fixated on her, she stays him for two seconds, and upon being spotted, he gingerly folds open the daily tabloid that was wedged in between his legs, masking his face once more. She ends off the recording abruptly by saying in a consternate voice; ‘What the hell was that?’

Research was done about the mystery man, but details about him were few and far between. But then the various people were questioned again, and some things started to link up. . .

‘Why did you bring me in sir? I already told you everything I know!’ babbled Dylan Talmarks, a friend of Jacqui.

‘We know, we know. But myself and Lead Inspector Franco would like to show you something. Tell me if you recognize anyone.’

Dylan immediately shot up when he saw the mysterious man, ‘There! That dude. I’ve seen him before. . .um. . .wait. . .ja, he tried to chat up Jacqui this one night when we were in the club. Jacqui always said that she wanted to stay single for a while, she didn’t want any complications. She told this dude to go fly, but he just walked away, without saying anything. . .’

‘How long ago was this?’ asked Franco with a frown etched into her forehead

‘About two weeks ago Inspector.’

‘Hmmm, ok, you sure you don’t have a name?’

‘No, I don’t. He just came there, tried to chat her up, got bombed, and bounced.’

‘Yes, yes! I’ve seen that guy before. I’ll never forget his penetrating brown eyes.’ Yelled Yasneen, Jacqui’s colleague. We were at the library, returning a few romance novels, when I saw this dude lurking in the aisles. He looked right past me, which I was the first thing that bothered me, I mean, look past me, really now, how’d he get that right? Anyhoo, he looked at Jacqui with so much passion, but not a romantic passion, a sick, psycho, I’m-a-very-weird-bad-man-stalker kind of passion. It truly was strange. He just looked at her, then when I told her about it, and she looked up, he quickly disappeared into the aisles. We tried to follow him, but he was gone.’

‘Wow, ok. Thanks. Seems we got our man now Jacobs. Run his face through the databases to see if you find him. You, young lady, are free to go.’

‘Thank you, have a fabulous day.’

And as Yasneen walked out, a package came in, for Fracno. It was a box, contained inside it was a piece of paper, on it, this was written;

You are playing a dangerous game. You have already lost one, will you lose another? Go to your office Mrs Franco, go to your computer, on your desktop you’ll find an image you haven’t seen before. It contains instructions for your next move. Don’t deny it.

She went to her pc and was shocked to find that her desktop cover was the image of a young lady, naked, with one stab wound on each shoulder, one stab wound on each of her upper thighs, and a solitary gunshot to the heart. It was Nabeela. Underneath it stood the address, a time, and an amount of money, R500 000 into an account as ransom for Jacqui, otherwise she would be met with the same fate as her. It was signed by Mr Nice.

The building where Jacqui was being held was a regular office building, still in use, not far from the police station. Mr Nice must have known someone in the police force to gain access to it. He couldn’t be part of the force, because no-one recognized him.

After arduously following the mazy directions, Franco and her team finally reached the place. It was the second floor from the top of the building, and it was a big dark room. As they entered, the room, the lights came on bit by bit. Revealing Mr Nice, behind a thick glass wall, with Jacqui, naked and gagged, handcuffed to a pillar, but still alive and unharmed. Mr Nice was pacing up and down, strapped up with a bullet proof vest, a harness, a gun, and an exotic knife.

‘Let her go, we WILL shoot you!’ Ordered Jacobs.

‘Go ahead; see if you can penetrate this transparent shield in front of me’ smiled Mr Nice.

Shot’s were fired off from a few of the officers, but nothing could get through the thick shield like barrier.

‘Send in the backup to the sides now!’ yelled Franco

‘Why bother, these doors are solidly bolted down, and even if they do get in here, I’ll be long gone by then.’

‘Why? Why did you kill Nabeela Petersen?’ asked Franco.

‘O, she was just the bait, to get what I want. Did you transfer the money?’

‘Yes, we did.’

‘Hmmmm, let me check. . .’ sniggered Mr Nice, while tapping into his phone. ‘Seems you have done your part, now it’s time for me to do mine.’ He smiled.

‘No! We gave you the money!, You’ve got what you want, let the girl go! She has done nothing to you.’

‘O really? Nothing? This woman you see before you today is cold, heartless, manipulative, and just a plain bitch.’

‘Sounds a lot like you.’ snapped Franco

‘Ah. I am but a man carrying out his duty to a friend, a brother. A man of valour. Theo March was an exceptional man, a hero for many people, doing things for his fellow man, without a thought for himself. But first and foremost, he was a business tycoon that started his empire from the ground. Then, in waltzes Ms Snob here, and upon failing to seduce him because his resolve was to strong, she does what any other spoilt bitch will do. She bad mouths him. But not low-key, she took it to another level. She spread so many things about him, that he lost his job, his company, his empire, his gorgeous fiancé, EVERYTHING. In an instant. After her failed rape charge attempt his life was in ruins, and in the stress of it all, he took his own life, his life that was turned into a nightmare.’

‘So this is a vendetta? Maybe it was just a big misunderstanding?’

‘No. Nothing was misunderstood. And to make sure nothing is misunderstood now, let me do this in front of you: THIS is for ALL the pain and stress you gave to him, a burden he found too heavy to carry out any longer.‘ He said stabbing her in each shoulder, ‘THIS is for the money you tried to STEAL from him, you greedy, gold-digging, spoilt brat,’ he said while stabbing her in each thigh, where one’s pockets would be. ‘And finally, this is for the death you caused. . .with your licentious, impudent, and idiotic idea of ruining a man’s life, and causing his death.’ He fired one single shot to her heart.

The police watched helplessly as this all enfolded in front of them, their hands, proverbially tied behind their back. There was nothing they could do to save Jacqui, Mr Nice has one-upped them once again.

Just then he started to rise up, a rope attached to his harness. He opened up the a vent cover on the ceiling, and proceeded to escape, but left with saying this; ‘May this be a lesson, to any and every woman that ever has such a malicious ruse planned for a man of golden heart, such as Theo March was. May his soul NOW rest in peace, knowing that justice has been served.’ And with that he was gone.’

‘It had to be done. The pain of loosing one’s child, I didn’t want to let another family suffer the pain of loosing a child, like I did with Theo. But. . .I was too late.’ Cried the Mrs March.

‘It’s true what you said now lady, but aren’t you causing the same pain to his parents by killing him too?’

‘His parents never loved him. Gave up on him a long time ago. After Theo’s death I looked after him like he was my own, but this, no, he was becoming a danger to anyone that reminded him of Jacqui.’

‘Madam, you do know you are a murderer now, you’ll have to go to jail for a very long time.’

‘I have set the balance right. My son would never want anyone to be killed, no matter how much they had hurt him. Sanity will prevail because balance has been achieved. Going to prison is fine if I think of all the lives I’ve saved.’

Saturday, 9 May 2009

We could be living in bliss, not aware of what sinister things lie ahead, not knowing that although there are good forces in this world, there are also bad, plotting the downfall of anything decent, moral, clean.’

‘Is that so?’

‘Ja. I worked as a clerk for a bank.’

‘Which one?’

‘Nedbank. Was working there for over 20 years. Worked my way up from security guard in the old regime, and from there to a fairly decent position. I had a beautiful wife, Marieke, she was so pretty. She was a textbook housewife. Cooked, cleaned, raised my two gorgeous daughters with enough strictness, but not neglecting to love them unconditionally.

I worked tirelessly to give them the best that money could buy, to make sure they succeeded in life, even if it meant me not getting the things I wanted to, I enjoyed it, because seeing them happy, was the greatest joy I could experience.

Then one day, one stupid day, one act of brainless folly, one prank that went too far, my life was transformed forever.

I opened up an email, not knowing the address of the sender, but still curious to see what it contains. I promise you as I clicked that open button, my director stood behind me. The contents of that mail was shocking. It was an image of a Lolita, you know what that is?’

‘I happen to know what that is yes, peado porn, you sicko.’

‘NO!, It wasn’t mine, and because the sender had a random address, I didn’t know who it was from. It was hideous. I was so appalled by this image of this tiny girl being impaled by this grown man, I sat there in consternation for a very long second, then I turned to my boss, and told him; I don’t know who this mail is from.

‘Did he believe you?’

‘He suspended me for a week. Sent me home, told me to ‘think about what I’ve done’, like I was some kind of child. I was livid, I had done nothing wrong!

A few days after that, ‘they’, ‘found’ more lewd images on my work drive, which is rather impossible to believe, seeing that I only had Excel and Word documents on that thing, no music, no nothing!

Rumour hit the streets that I had raised my girls as a molesting father, mentioning me doing the most revolting things to them, this was supposedly the reason they were so loose, but I promise you I never laid a finger – or anything else – on them, never! Only to hug them when they need to be consoled, tuck them in when they’re cold’

‘I get it, I get it, but you really should hurry up with this story, my lunch break is nearly done, and here I’m sitting talking to a bergie instead of buying me lunch.’

‘Okay, okay. After the rumours done the rounds in the neighbourhood, people started talking, looking at me differently. But my wife and kids knew me, and supported me every step of the way.

On the last day of my ‘probation’ I was doing some cycling around the streets of my town, when out of the blue this huge black van plummeted down a hilly street, and bulldozed me right off my bike and crashing onto the tarred road. I remember blood streaming down my forehead. But that was all. I woke up here in Cape Town, so many kilometres away from Bloemfontein, where I lived.

I then found out that nothing in this world is an accident, or just happens by chance. Well, in my scenario anyway. I also learned that the worst pain one can suffer is the pain inflicted by the one you love.

My accident was no accident. I was a take down, a hit. The order for it was given by the same people that sent me that e-mail, that spread the rumours. It was my boss. And MY WIFE. I heard from the only person I know here in Cape Town, my cousin, that they planned to kill me. They were having an affair for many years, keeping in the shadows for such a long time, while I wasted every moment of my worthless life, selflessly working for her and my kids. They found out about my investments overseas, scratched in my stuff, seeing that I was doing pretty well there numbers wise. They couldn’t resist. The power of greed, the love of power, corrupted the woman I once thought I wanted to spend the rest of forever with. They failed to kill me. That’s how I ended up here though. They drugged me up with sedatives, and when I woke up, I woke up in this very spot.

‘Cool story bro.’

‘Don’t patronize me, just because I’m not that clean, or that have no where to sleep, or smell like a packet of rotten alcohol dipped, diced onions sprinkled with a dash of paprika, doesn’t give you the right to look down on me.’

‘I said nothing offensive to you now.’

‘I see that look in your face, I see it when I try to go to any church. You Christians claim to be doing good deeds and be God’s children, but the minute someone less fortunate, or less neater, or less fragrant steps into your church, you pull your nose up, looking at us condescendingly, praying that I don’t touch you, or invade your precious Sunday morning Jesus bubble. Where do you think your souls go to? DO you think there are two heavens? One for super holy pious people, so aloof, so detached from the reality of this world, and then one more where all the dirty, poor and less-privileged must go to? Please. If you can’t deal with people like us here on earth, then you might as well go to HELL!

‘So you’re telling me you didn’t just tell me all those stories so that I’ll sympathize with you and give you some change so that you can buy paraffin

Saturday, 25 April 2009

I was at the gym, at a bench, loading up my bar with some weights. It was Easter the week before, and I was looking to work off all the celebratory gluttony that transpired. Then from the corner of my eye, I saw her walking toward me. She was hot. Kinda. She was toned. Well. She wasn’t fat. She was milfy. At least 15 years older than me I guestimated. Dressed in a lime green velvet gym Capri-pants that was tighter than a fat guy in spandex and a white vest that flaunted her assets quite extravagantly, her hair, tied back tightly making her seem a tad younger, but I saw through that. Her walk, rather spicy for the sweat clad halls of the gym, a look of kinky intent in her eyes.

She was still new to the gym, or at least to our timeslot. The only chicks that gym before work in the wee hours of the morning are whales and raggedy milfs, who funnily enough always seem to undress me with their eyes, which is so most uncool. So, anything this hot was eagerly ogled by the guys.

She walks to me, and gingerly, in a marshmallowey soft voice asks; ‘Could you help me please.’ Without giving away to much emotion I agreed, followed her to the leg press contraption, and helped her, thinking, why would she want to take the weights off here, if the leg-press machine that used the cable was open? When I was done, I said ‘cool’ and stealthily returned to my bench, too afraid to steal a look at her deep, brooding eyes.

Somewhere during my workout I noticed how she would just happen to be close to where I was. Where ever I was working out, she’d be within a 10m radius. At first it was kind of disconcerting, but after a couple of days I got used to it. Then one day I was in the aerobics room doing some abdominal toning. I was doing a side plank, facing away from the gym and its people. Then upon turning around to do the plank on the other side who’s plonked next to me? Ja. You guessed it. I thought to myself; ‘Damn woman, aren’t you married or something?’ Apparently not. She geared herself up to do knee tucks on the fitness ball, and I was busy doing crunches on my ball, when wwwoooops! She loses her balance and falls slap bang straight onto me, sending my ball ricocheting off the wall behind me. Her fall planted her soft body right onto me, her lips, inches away from mine, her twins, quite happy to see me from what I felt, caressing my chest like a freshly ironed jersey, her eyes, locked onto mine. She breathed in and unleashed a minty whiff of lasciviousness right into my face. It made my eyes tingle a little; ‘I’m so sorry, I just lost my balance,’ she whispered, and as she got up she slid up on me, knocking her bodacious buxom bosoms in my face and her love muffin over my family jewels.

I was speechless.

She walked away like nothing had happened, leaving me with a taut twanger and her card. . .

I thought to myself, you know what, I might learn a thing or two from this woman, it also doesn’t seem like she’s going to stop stalking me anytime soon. So I asked if we can meet somewhere away from the gym. We sat down for a coffee that Saturday, and from then on we became good friends.

We went out often, to movies, to shoot pool, stuff I liked, but also to watch ballets and opera and theatre stuff, things she liked as well. Our odd relationship was blossoming, but we were too afraid to tell our respective families. They wouldn’t understand.

Then one night, our romance reached its apex. She told me she was tired of us being just friends. She wanted more. She took me home with her, on the pretence that we were going to watch a movie there. Who was I to say no? She led me to her living room, sat me down, and said I should make myself at home, she was just gonna organize some snacks.

She returns a few minutes later, but with no snacks – or clothes. The dim light from the kitchen lighting her sturdy curves, accentuating every nuance of her supple skin, her hair, draped across her shapely shoulders like sunrays on the waterfront on a summer’s morning. Her lips glistening with strawberry lip-gloss akin to sauce drizzled onto ice cream. Her breasts like ripe apples, juicy and firm. Her stomach, enchanting, entrancing, as she waltzes towards me with libidinous ideas. Her eyes, provocatively looking down on me. Her legs, like pillars of marble, leading me to the pleasure palace of this amazing queen. She mounted me like a jockey about to ride the J&B met and kissed me passionately, while unbuttoning my shirt and rubbing my chest, she continued to undress me, then, my phone rang.

It was my girlfriend.

I was having so much risqué fun with her that I clean forgot to mention the fact that I had a steady girlfriend of 5 years. She was shocked. She couldn’t believe I’d taken her for a ride like that. But as I found out later, as a wife and mother of 3 children, she was a little bit too unchaste herself. I asked her why on earth she would want to pursue me in the first place, knowing that she was married. Apparently my father, may his soul rest in peace, pursued her when he was her age, and she was mine, and it was the best loving she ever experienced. When she saw me, she recognized him in me, and immediately craved for the raunchy times she spent with him again.

I followed the rainbow. I thought I found the secret treasure of a lifetime. An experienced minx whose words seduce men like a hot knife through butter, melting them away with consummate ease, but then, like Medusa, she turns to stone, her vengeance and wrath after what I done, is like a death-thirsty black widow, mustering every bit of her demented energy to destroy you, to end you.

She tried everything in her power to break me and my girlfriend up. She wanted me to fulfil her sick fantasies of the past. I refused. And in doing so she became the bane of my entire existence. Until one day she tried to commit suicide while talking to me on the phone. And on her death bed in the hospital before she died she dropped the bomb on me. My now wife-to-be could never be my wife. It was her child. She gave my fiancé up for adoption just after she was born. It was the love child of her and my father.

. . .

It was my sister.

This photo was taken at 08:04 on the 19th of September 2008. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, this on spoke 1168 words.

Sunday, 5 April 2009

I find myself meandering through these passages again. Cold, murkily lit, the air drenched with the piercing smell of suffering and urine fused into a stomach-roiling cocktail of disinfectant and melancholy.

I’ve been here before. More than I would have preferred. I’ve seen my happiest days in these very passages, but some of the worst as well. But after the last time I vowed never to come back. The pain I faced then was unassailable. I used to laugh when I was younger. I used to sing. I always had a song in my heart. But life has now taken it away. I sit crying night after night, thinking how I’m going to survive another day with all these problems. Thinking back to all the things I’ve been through. Not knowing how I pulled through.

It’s been 3 years now that my father has left us. My mother, Trudy, used to cry day in and day out. Not knowing how her loving husband, Robbie, could just run away with another woman like this. She’s older than my mom, but this jezebel offers the joys of frivolous sex without the worries of a wife, children and a household to look after. It’s like he’s trying to be young again. Mummy doesn’t cry anymore. She replaced the tears with cigarettes. Her habitual vice has now mutated into a smog guzzling monstrosity that withers away our already exhausted budget and her already waning health, but she is oblivious to all this, and carries on wasting away her life. Samuel tries to help us out. He tries real hard. He’s the only member of our family that actually became something. He lives far away with his wife in Scandanavia, and is a physiotherapist for some or other sports team. I don’t know which one coz I’m not really a sporty kinda girl, I prefer reading a good romance book with a Rooibos tea to sweaty sports thugs.But Samuel’s wife watches his finances and what he does like a hawk. She’s a nice person, but looks down on us, because of the lives we live. Mummy is a nicotine-chimney, Cape Calypso-guzzling loafer that sells herself to the sleaziest of men for an extra dime to put food on the table, a shadow of her former very successful self, my younger brother, Brently, totally lost the plot when his father left, and is now ensnared in a plethora of drug activity and messes with the wrong crew for the wrong reasons, trying to find a father figure in a gang leader, or comfort in gintus, or respite from the pain with drugs. Samuel used to be Rebecca this and Rebecca that, and she’s the best, and all that kak, until I ruined my own life with a total loser promising me the world and comforted me after my father’s death. I fell pregnant, and fell for the lies of these manipulative bullies who were much older than me thrice in two years, three different guys, but had one child aborted because there wasn’t a normal gap of 9 months in-between the second and third child. I found comfort in sex with these cretins, hoping I would find love and security from a man, something I didn’t get from my father, but all they were after was my vagina, which was now, well and truly overused. My dreams of becoming just like Samuel, successful, wise and prosperous, took a knock with my first born, and just totally vanished after the third pregnancy, along with Samuel’s trust and endorsement.

I hold my mother’s hands with all these things rumbling through my head ferociously like a pair of shoes in a washing machine. She can no longer breathe properly. The emphysema and cancer has ravaged her entire respiratory system and has made her weak. Her addictions have caught up with her, but I’m thinking, that maybe this is for the best, this infliction, this hurt, can’t be more painful than the life she reduced herself to live. I pray. For the family, but mostly for her. I ask the Lord to forgive her sins, she is a good person underneath all this filth. She no longer has friends, shunned away by her family, but I tell her God is always there no matter what happens, God will always care. She looks at me, death etched into her face, suffering carved onto her lips, but in her eyes, I saw hope, in those yellow, bloodshot, cancerous eyes, I saw hope, then she closed them, and didn’t open them again. She had passed. But somehow I knew she was going to better place.

Although my life is troublesome and jinxed, I cling onto the glimmer of hope that happiness and success can only be appreciated once you have suffered heartache and disappointment. God will not take us through these journeys, if he didn’t think we were strong enough.

After her mother’s death, Rebecca used the money she received from the insurance payout to send Brently to rehab and to get his life back on track again. After a year of rehab he joined a soccer team, and is now playing regularly andis off the drugs. Rebecca went back to college and studied while working to look after her kids and after 3 years got a degree in Marketing and now has a job and a loving husband and has turned her life around, all but cancelling out her dark and arid former life, but the memory of her mother, the inspiration not to repeat her footsteps and to be a better person.

This photo was taken at 14:51 on the 15th of November 2008. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, this on spoke 1145 words.

Sunday, 29 March 2009

To the unknowing observer, this must have been a truly arcane sight. The authorities have a vague suspicion, but only those who were part of it know the happenings of the night before, the audacious swoop, the astuteness of the preparation, the shrewdness of their escape, a clandestine operation, but the damage dealt not so surreptitious though. . .

It’s 3am and we were on schedule, just a few kilometres away from the Medical Research Council. We knew they would still be there. But they didn’t know that we knew about them. We’ve been watching them. Dr Alberts and Prof MacIntyre were developing something. Something unobtrusive. Something noble. That would revolutionize the way man existed. We could not have that. This discovery they’ve made would change the world forever.

What they’ve done is create the world’s strongest adhesive. Just a drop could keep a half ton of metal attached to another, infinitely. This adhesive is yet to fail in the test they have done. It will make construction of anything substantially cheaper, and we won’t have that. WE want that power. Unlike most organizations, our mandate is not just to steal or fraud or petty things like that. We want control. Control is money. And money is power. With this herculean adhesive and the recipe to make it in our grasp, we will start to gain control by taking over property development, construction, power-generation, until everything uses our glue, and when that happens, we asks for tax on it, and then we will take over. . .anyone who would denounce our movement would be ended.

There was security abound at the main entrance. Guards, cameras, electric fences. So we had to make alternative arrangements. We drove past the entrance about 500 meters down. We could use a helicopter, but where’s the stealth in that? We line up a ramp so that the thick pavement can’t dent our pre-prepared hummer, or impede it’s path, or break it’s speed. We place an old mattress on the wall, to smother the impact, to silence it, and to make it easier for our 3 ton, fully-titanium, imperishable beast. De Jong was behind the wheel. 20 years of in-field training would suffice for this feat. So what, he just needs to ram his hummer into a wall? That’s easy!

No.

It’s not.

He only has a tricky run-up, and a minimal amount of nitrous-oxide that needs to be released at just the right time, he needs to turn sharply, from the main road into the ramp and slap bang into and through the wall, without ruining the electric fencing above it, otherwise the alarm would go off, all this, while bearing the knowledge that his baby son is in the hospital with hand, foot, and mouth disease and his daughter is 3 months pregnant with a girl who will be named after his divorced wife, Petronella, who ran off with his physically disabled cousin Kerneels after having an affair with him for 12 years behind his back. His secret life of lies and deceit had caught up with him in the most unfortunate of ways. But all that was of no relevance for him now. All that mattered was the task that lay ahead. He had to break this wall. Cleanly.

In less than five seconds of precise driving acumen, De Jong rammed into the wall after a wicked turn, adorned by the glittering colours of the Nos smoke, hit the mattress and flat-out pulverized the wall, leaving the way for the speedsters to do their thing.

They now had exactly 5 minutes to run across a one kilometer long stretch of lush field to get to the laboratory. All they needed to do was steal the recipe for the adhesive. And one sample. That’s it.

Or was it?

In the hummer, a security breach. An entourage of cars was making their way towards our position. One or two cars would be understandable. 3:30 on a Monday night? Could be raucous, rancid youth, returning home from shit-faced Mondays, but these were 6 cars. It was the Scorpions. . .

The Scorpions were on to us. Chris Petersen ratted us out. Matter fact, he was working for them the whole time. He infiltrated the ranks of our organization, ingratiated himself with the relevant leaders of the group, for a whole six months, and tonight, just as we were about to launch our offensive, the culmination of many months of research, he tried to collapse it, he tried to stop us from realizing our vision. . .

He was duly shot in the back of the head. Cold bloodedly murdered. But in this organization risks have to be taken to keep what we are doing secret. And to be exposed now would be a monumental obstruction.

Petersen had left us a farewell gift. He had a nano-chip in his watch. If he stopped breathing, the Scorpions would immediately be notified on his position co-ordinates, also where all his belongings were. Our bullet-proof vests were his creations; we thought he was the best thing since rum and coke. We were incorrect.

Now with a revised deadline of 3 minutes our speedsters had their work cut out for them. They were still trying to hack into the alarm system of the laboratory when they heard about our updated mission status. But Donald and Williams were masters at what they do. They deciphered the code of the alarm and that of the safe housing the samples and the recipe rather quickly, immobilizing the good doctors with some long-distance tazer action.

Our back-up cars had to leave to make the scene less conspicuous, the hummer as well, leaving only the turbo-charged Corsa. A clever ploy to mask our intentions. A souped up Corsa is common-place at drags and could pass as those spoiled, impish youths wasting away their parents’ hard-earned money on car-parts, body-kits and sound systems.

As the scorpions arrive our Corsa leaves the scene, bulleting out of that hole in the wall like an infant Chuck Norris round-house kicking his way out of his mother’s womb and sped off into the suburbs to hide away in our well hidden, civilian-like espionage house, where we analyzed our efforts for the night in the underground hq. Chris might have thought he had 1-upped us, but unfortunately this company trusted no-one. Any data or applications from our systems and archives are programmed to automatically evolve into a malicious Trojan virus when it finds itself on any operating system other than ours, then it multiplies into every folder on their system, and creates an .exe file that, when opened, closes all other windows and fills the screen with our majestic, regal trademark: bubbles. Thousands of bubbles. That have to be popped until any other operation can be performed.

This usually fries the cpu and crashes the hard drive.

The next time you see a bubble, you will remember it’s power.

This photo was taken at 06:34 on the 19th of November 2008. They say a picture speaks a thousand words, this one spoke 1157 words.